1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly to a semiconductor device having internal modules, each module having a different function, in which any combination of modules are selectable during a die sorting test step.
2. Description of Related Art
A conventional method of manufacturing a semiconductor device includes designing and developing circuits based on certain specifications provided by a customer. Alternatively, a semiconductor device may be manufactured by fabricating circuit elements or modules on a semiconductor chip and wiring the circuit elements based on the specification provided by a customer. The semiconductor device manufactured by the latter of the above methods is referred to as a custom-designed product.
All the processing steps carried out to fabricate circuit elements on the semiconductor chip are the same for each group of custom-designed products. During the aluminum wiring step, which is carried out after the circuit element forming step, circuit elements previously developed and fabricated that meet the specification are selectively wired to each other, thus resulting in a customized product.
Conventionally, for custom-designed products, aluminum master slicing and mask trimming steps have been used as part of the wiring step. The aluminum master slicing and the mask trimming differ from each other in the following aspects. In the aluminum master slicing, circuit elements corresponding to a particular specification are connected to each other during the first aluminum layer wiring step. Functional blocks formed on a semiconductor chip corresponding to the specification are connected to each other in the second aluminum layer wiring step. On the other hand, in the mask trimming, the first aluminum layer wiring step and the previous steps are made common. The circuit element characteristics are then evaluated. Thereafter, the circuit element characteristics are adjusted, so as to meet the customized specification in the second aluminum layer wiring step based on the evaluation result. The mask trimming may be, in some cases, performed even for products other than the custom-designed product.
With the custom-designed process described above, reliable semiconductor devices are more efficiently manufactured, as compared with a case where the device is manufactured from a basic circuit design. However, in the above-described method, it is necessary to use a wiring pattern corresponding to the customized specification and to evaluate the integrity of the wiring pattern. In particular, as shown in a flow chart of FIG. 1, product A or product B must be manufactured by selecting circuit elements for each product after carrying out the circuit element forming step. In addition, the aluminum wiring step is used on each semiconductor product using an aluminum wiring pattern designed in accordance to the customized specification.
Accordingly, the costs for designing and producing a mask (reticle) for forming an aluminum wiring based on the customized specification is substantial. In addition to the different aluminum wiring step, customized subsequent processing steps are required, thus increasing costs and processing time (generally, it takes several weeks to fabricate a customized semiconductor chip).
The present invention solves the above-described problems by providing a semiconductor device having a desired characteristic which can be supplied in a reduced time in response to customized specifications. This is achieved by initially having several types of custom circuit elements having independent functions in the semiconductor device and then disconnecting the unused circuit elements. This may be achieved by a program setting operation of a tester in a die sorting test.